Crowdfunding campaign success

What an outstanding accomplishment to have surpassed our goal to fully fund our Emerging Journalist fellowship program this month! We had a record number of applicants and a record response to our fundraising efforts with more than 223 individual crowdfunding donations, several designated private gifts, including new backing from the founders of GrantHer and a $2,500 travel grant from the Ford Foundation.

This is a terrific endorsement of our program to encourage and provide support for 10 new journalists and a wonderful reminder of why JAWS is so important.

A month ago, we asked for support from JAWS members, outside supporters and the fellowship winners’ networks and the results are impressive: the CrowdRise effort alone brought in $13,173 with more than $3,000 raised by the fellows themselves. The amplification of our message through our JAWS website and social media campaign on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn paid off.

The successful fundraising – three times what we collected last year – means that JAWS can cover all of the travel, accommodation and registration costs of CAMP (Oct. 31 to Nov. 2) for these fellowship winners and also allow them to attend the extra investigative reporting session (Oct. 30).

“I am so proud of the fundraising efforts by all 10 of this year’s amazing fellows,” said Meg Heckman, who put together the crowdfunding effort. “That money came from more than 200 donors across the U.S. and beyond who believe in the work JAWS does to promote media diversity now and in the future.”

Kira Zalan, who organized the fellowship effort and led the review committee to evaluate the 86 applications, said choosing among so many qualified applicants was tough but shows how valuable the JAWS experience is for women who need the networking, mentoring and training we provide.

“I am excited to take part in creating opportunities for other women to experience CAMP and, if they haven’t already, to fall in love with JAWS,” she said.